The world suddenly went bright again, like the sun wet out for a few seconds and came back even more blinding. Dauirmuid rubbed his eyes and saw static, and looked up to see another Racoon faun, who was sitting on a leather chair, which was in front of a fireplace. He had the top half of a man, with black curly hair and ivory skin. The man had a friendly smile, which glistened in the light of a few lanterns around the room, and the four walls seemed far too tall and wide to fit in the tiny house. There were shelves crammed with books of human literature surrounding the fireplace. The door was open slightly, and it lead back into the hallway. He couldn't help but wonder how he got in there.
"Greetings, Jeremy." The Tanuki said, it was unmistakably the voice of the man quoting the poem. He stood up and began to walk toward Dauirmuid.
That must be the owner of the territory. He thought to himself. "Hi.. tha- that was a cool poem. I think I've heard it before." Dauirmuid stuttered to begin with, avoiding eye contact with the mysterious man.
"Yes. The work of humans has always astonished me, particularly their literature." He replied, he was smiling still, even his voice seemed to grin in it's own way. Dauirmuid suddenly jumped backwards as the raven from before swooped out of the chimney in a flurry of soot, and landed gracefully on the man's shoulder.
"I've been watching you." The man said.
".. well, that's comforting." Responded Dauirmuid, in a half sarcastic, half shaky tone. The raven jumped down, and landed on the floor in the form of a raccoon, then a tanuki faun with blonde hair, wearing a white button down shirt and a brown waistcoat. The new arrrival took their bow, and introduced themself.
"Emerson, my friend. Glad to make your acquaintance." They said. It was impossible to tell if this was a male or female tanuki. "And the man behind myself goes by William. So.. I'm sorry for following you around for so long, following orders, you know how it is." They talked rather quickly, like a human squirrel.
"Emerson, you may see yourself out. Thank you for completing your task."
"Absolutley sir, no problem." And on the way out they whispered something to William that Dauirmuid couldn't quite make out. William turned back to face him.
"So.. you were the child I cursed back in twenty-twelve, correct?"
"Yes, I came to say I'm sorry for my behaviour. Not entirely sure what I did wrong though.."
"You don't remember?"
"Well, yeah. It's been ten years, hard to recall anything from back then."
"I understand. However you will need to remember so you can properly apologise."
"How do I do that?"
"That's the thing, and that's why there's so many residents of this humble village."
"..what?"
"Hah, you ask too many questions. Such is the nature of human curiosity." William seemed to wander away into his own world as he said this.
"This isn't 'human curiosity', this is me missing having a normal bottom half and wanting to live a normal life." The tanuki slowly turned his head back toward Dauirmuid, like someone who had been pulled out of a fun daydream at school.
"Yes? And what is normal to you?"
"..Being a human- Now you're asking the obvious things, please just remove this curse."
"I cannot do that until you have properly apologised." Dauirmuid could see where this was headed, and shut his mouth. "Time's running out, Dauirmuid." And the tanuki turned into a crow and swooped into the doorway. Dauirmuid stood alone for a few seconds before following the man into he hallway, only to find he had already left.Daurimuid had left the house, wandered toward a shady tree and started pacing around. Racking his brain for the memory of that day. He was panicking, but his heart was scarcely beating. It felt more like a tiny person rapping at a window in his chest every few seconds.
"Ugh.. what am I going to do.." he muttered to himself. He could remember everything, walking through the vines, into the hall of trees with the light at the end, and then getting knocked out.
I wasn't even in the territory, I don't see how I was intruding.. He sat down, finally. Waiting for some miraculous event to occur. After a few minutes of holding his head in his hands, a child wandered up to him.
"P-pardon me sir. Ma-may I ask for your assistance?" The child spoke in a posh manner, but stuttered a fair bit.
"Oh, uh- yeah. What's wrong?" Daurimuid got onto his knee to face the kid. She had ginger hair and denim overalls with a white shirt, which was covered in a few stains of dirt.
"I-I saw a man. He was being carried away by some strange men. Can- could you make sure he's okay?" She mumbled, just loud enough for Dauirmuid to hear.
"Okay, um.. might I ask why it must be me?" He tried to speak on the same level of old fashioned as the little girl.
"He tried to tell me something, an-and he said to look for someone who looks like you." At this point, the little person tapping on the walls of his chest got faster.
"Of course, where was this man going?"
"You- you can follow me?.. if you want?"
"Thank you.. what's your name?"
"Riley.. May."
"Okay, lets go then." Dauirmuid stumbled to his paws and followed the girl.Lexi finally awoke. He had a piece of cloth concealing him mouth, and leaves around his wrists, ankles and torso, and he was floating in mid air. He tried to yell, but mumbling was all that came out. He writhed and squirmed, trying to release himself.
"No use." Said a voice from beside him. Lexi quickly turned to face it, it was a stranger in a three piece suit, but they only wore the waistcoat and white button shirt. He could not tell the sex of the strange person. Lexi's muffled sentences did not make any sense to the strange person, who simply looked away and said:
"Calm down, help is coming."
"Mmf??" The strange person didn't reply, so Lexi relaxed and swung back into his normal position. Then he tried to turn into something to slip out of the handcuffs.
"William's bindingu handcuffs, you're stuck in human form until released."
"Mfd mfing MM"
"Language, sir." Lexi stared over at him and sighed through the fabric. He could hear voices, and his hopes raised.
"Lexi?!" Dauirmuid called out. He ran over to him as if he was doing the cliche 'Run toward the man of your dreams' bit, then slowed to a walk and simply stared up at him. "And.. strange person from William's coven?"
"Thank god the stuttery one was able to even talk to you. Where's William?"
"I don't know, after you left he kind of.. flew away."
"Oh, a dramatic exit? Thats just like him.." The stranger said, almost dreamily. Lexi threw Dauirmuid a look.
"Right, hold on." He walked toward Lexi and reached up at the twigs arouns his wrists. When they became untangled his hand quickly shifted into a paw, then it changed back as quickly as it came. Dauirmuid jumped back at this, then Lexi tore the fabric out of his mouth.
"I'm so glad you're here, by the way. I wanted to say that when I couldn't talk." Then he swung his arm around to get his other wrist free. Dauirmuid smiled to himself after he said this, then he quickly hid it.
"Hey, you uh- wouldn't mind helping me too?" Dauirmuid began to approach them mid scentence and released their wrist. They didn't change shape like Lexi's.
"Hey, it sounds like you're pretty close to William. How come he chained you up?" Asked Lexi.
"Oh.. no reason." They replied, hesitantly. Dauirmuid smirked at Lexi, and then he realised what he was hinting and smirked back.
"Not like that, dimwits." They then released their final ankle and stood up. "You better get out of here, he may seem charming enough, but he's capable of amazing things."
"'Amazing things', yeah I bet." Dauirmuid smiled to himself again, but neither of the other two caught on. "But jokes aside, why? We came all the way to Japan to fix this and it's going to happen."
"Okay, I'm going to need you to be honest with me for a second. Are you sure you want to stay human?"
"..Well, that was very forward. No, I don't miss the time where I didn't grow a tail or make animalistic noises out of the blue."
"...I'm not very familliar with sarcasm. When I'm spying for Will I don't really talk to-"
"Yes! It was sarcasm."
"Okay. My apologies. I will say there are advantages to this, for example you evaded those children back in Belfast."
"Yeah, four year olds are easily escaped anyways. And the only reason they were after me was because I was a squirrel."
"Ah, but you became a squirrel to get into your house without getting seen in the first place. You got noticed at your own fault."
"I.. was making use of what I could do at the time. So what if I got noticed?"
"Getting seen by humans isn't the point of this conversation."
"Then what is the point? And why does it feel like everybody is trying to convince me not to do this-?" Suddenly, a voice called out from behind them.
"Stop right there!" A middle aged tanuki ran over and grabbed Lexi, who was partially in shock and barely noticed at first.
"Why were you setting the kitsune free?!" Another called out, and began to run toward Dauirmuid with a spear in hand. Dauirmuid turned to face the strange tanuki, but they had dissapeared. He braced himself and prepared to fight back.
YOU ARE READING
Kodama forests's Curse
ParanormalA short-ish story about an Irish young adult who got cursed by a species of yokai, slowly turning him into a yokai himself. With the assistance of an American online friend of his called Lexi, he attempts to break his curse so he can continue a huma...